Some 20% of local governments in Japan have no disaster specialists
Across the nation, 20.5% of municipalities have no officials exclusively tasked with handling disaster responses, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday ahead of the 10th anniversary of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan.
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Kyodo conducted the poll from October to December, asking city, town and village governments nationwide how many officials they deploy exclusively to handle jobs related to natural disasters, including drawing up disaster response policies and issuing evacuation orders in case of disasters.
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Disaster officials typically belong to specialized departments such as for crisis management, but many small municipalities have no such department, leaving general affairs divisions to assume these duties, local governments said.
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The central government has requested that municipalities come up with measures to better respond to disasters in the wake of the 2011 quake and tsunami that sparked a crisis involving the now-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
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